A New Kind of Fairytale
by MyToxicValentine
Summary: With a wicked stepmother and bratty stepsisters, countless chores, a blank social calendar, and a huge crush on the dashing prince of the varsity basketball team, Bella’s life has all the makings of a Cinderella story. Will Bella get her prince? AH OOC
1. Chapter 1

Not mine. Comes from "If I Have A Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince". Good book, you should read it...although you are on here, just with different names.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Cinderella  
dead mother  
wicked stepmother  
evil stepsisters (2)  
friendless

Me  
dead mother  
wicked stepmother  
evil stepsisters (2)  
friendless

I tapped my pen against my lips, debating whether or not Cinderella is actually friendless. I mean, she does have all those talking animals helping her out when she gets into a jam. But do they count as friends? It's not as if a blue jay can meet you at Starbucks for an after-school latte. As I tried to categorize the small woodland creatures Cinderella associates with, my eyes accidentally wandered over to Alice Brandon, this girl who sits across the classroom from me. When we made eye contact, her expression didn't change - it was as though I wasn't there.

I crossed out friendless in the Cinderella column and drew in a woodchuck.

Cinderella

father dead

Me

father alive

Once more, I wasn't sure this was an accurate description of our respective situations. I mean, technically, my dad is alive. More than technically - it's not like he's in a coma or anything. But considering that I am currently living with his new wife and stepdaughters on Long Island while he spends Monday to Friday back in San Francisco finishing up this mondo case he was supposed to be done with before we moved to New York in August seven months ago, his being alive doesn't do me a whole lot of good.

I went back to my list and put quotation marks around alive.

" . . . that you can't subtract here until you divide here." Mr. Palmer slapped the board, raising a small cloud of chalk dust. Then he spun toward the window. "Mister Newton," he spat. "Can you tell me why that is?"

Mike Newton's head shot up and he looked around the room in a panic. The skateboarding magazine tucked into his math book slipped to the floor.

I barely listened as Mr. Palmer raged at Mike, spit flying out of the corners of his mouth. I wasn't the only one unimpressed by Mr. Palmer's tantrum (his third of the day); even Mike kept his eyes on his magazine, sliding it under his chair with his toe. And as usual, even before the bell had rung, despite the fact that Mr. Palmer was still talking, kids started throwing stuff into their backpacks. "I think you're going to want to hear this since it involves a possible surprise quiz on Thursday." No one paid any attention to him. Mr. Palmer is always threatening surprise quizzes and then not giving them. All first semester I spent my nights cramming frantically for a quiz that never came. Now I just ignored his threats like everyone else.

Out in the hallway, Rosalie Hale, Alice Brandon's BFF, embraced Alice passionately, as if the cruelty of the math-tracking powers that be was almost too much to bear. Maybe I'm paranoid, but as I walked by, it was hard not to feel that the sole purpose of their daily reunion was to remind me of my utterly friendless state.

For the record, let's just acknowledge that relocation has not done wonders for my social life. To say I haven't discovered a soul mate within the Glen Lake population would be an understatement. I have not even discovered a homework mate. And the irony of my current situation is that I just went through this a year ago. When I was in eighth grade, my dad got totally obsessed with how the curriculum at my junior high wasn't rich enough or enriched enough or whatever, and he decided that if I didn't attend Wellington Academy for high school, mine would be an empty and meaningless existence (kind of like it is now). So I had to kiss Bayview Middle School good-bye, leave all my friends, and go off to Wellington, where I knew no one. Then, just as I'm finally settling in and can stop skulking around the halls like an assassin, practically at the very moment my cell phone starts ringing with calls from people who don't just want me to switch my long-distance carrier, my dad announces he's getting married to the Wicked Witch of the North Shore, we're moving to New York, and I'll be starting sophomore year at Glen Lake High in the fall.

You know who people don't stay in touch with when she leaves their time zone?

The new girl.

I made my way to my locker and then to the cafeteria. Since January, when I started taking studio art, I've usually been able to eat my lunch in the art room, thereby avoiding the humiliation of being the lone occupant of a cafeteria table that could easily seat twenty. But Ms. Daniels, my art teacher, was holding private conferences in the studio all through lunch today, so I had nowhere to flee. I bought a sandwich and made my way to what seemed to be an isolated, undesirable table in the corner of the crowded lunchroom.

It turned out I was wrong about the table's undesirability, just as I've been wrong about pretty much everything else at Glen Lake High. Within minutes of my sitting down at one end, a noisy group of seniors swarmed and then sat at the other, twirling car keys around their index fingers and grabbing French fries out of one another's McDonald's bags.

In the center of the crowd sat Alec Pearson, laughing and chatting with his loyal subjects. The star of the basketball team and president of the student council, Alec was also voted "Best Looking" by the senior class. In the fall, to raise money, the cheerleaders raffled off a kiss with Alec Pearson and two hundred girls bought tickets. (That would be one hundred and ninety-nine girls plus yours truly.) But sadly for me and all the other members of Glen Lake's female population, rumor was Alec only had eyes for Victoria Dawson: Homecoming Queen, who, like all good queens, was currently seated to the right of her lordship.

Some people make me feel freakishly taller than I actually am, and Victoria Dawson is one of those people. Everything about her is tiny and pale and perfect. I think she might have been created from a kit. Also, she acts as though ignoring underclassmen is a varsity sport.

Basically, you can't not hate her.

Still, I'm not crazy enough to think it's Victoria Dawson's fault that Alec Pearson doesn't know I exist. Or that she's blacklisted me, and that's why I have yet to make one friend within the Glen Lake community. I know I have only myself to blame. I watch the kids in my classes talking before the bell rings, and I know all I need to do if I want to talk to them is talk. Just say something. Anything. And it's not like I don't want to talk to some of them. It's not as if it's their fault I was dragged kicking and screaming across the continental United States.

If three's supposed to be the charm, it hasn't made me especially charming. Moving to New York to attend my third school in three years appears to have mutated some friend-making gene I didn't even know I had. Now, instead of talking to people like I normally would, I just sit silently, as if I'm watching them swing a jump rope higher and higher while waiting for just the right moment to step in and start jumping.

And it never comes.

That night at dinner, while I was just sitting there minding my own business and trying to decide if I should take my dad up on his wager that the Rockets were going to lose by ten, one of my twelve-year-old twin stepsisters looked over at me and pursed her lips, as if I were something she'd eaten and didn't like the taste of. I should have taken her look as a warning, but I was too busy calculating the game's odds. Which is why a minute later, when she addressed me, I was caught totally off guard.

"You should wear a padded bra, Bella," said Princess One, still eyeing me. "Your boobs are really small."

Unfortunately she hadn't cleared this tip with her sister, who was so eager to offer counter advice, she nearly choked on her veggie burger. "It's too late for that now," said Princess Two. "She should have started back in September."

"That's a good point," acknowledged Princess One.

Neither one of my stepsisters seemed at all bothered by the fact that compared to them, I'm Pamela Anderson.

"Actually," I said, "you know how last week you said I should get blond highlights because of how my hair's too brown?"

The Princesses nodded eagerly.

"Well, I was thinking I'd dye my boobs blond and get a padded skull."

"Ha ha, Bella," said Princess One. "News flash: Maybe if you took this kind of thing a little more seriously, you would have been invited to the homecoming dance."

"News flash," I echoed. "Not everyone's life goal is to get the word juicy tattooed on her ass."

"Bella," Sue said, emerging from the coma she enters whenever her daughters start criticizing me, "please don't use that kind of language at the table."

After dinner I headed down to my "room," known in most houses as "the basement."

For the first few months after my dad and I moved into my stepmother's house, I was actually a little worked up about the fact that I live in a furnitureless dungeon where my "bed" is an air mattress; and my clothing - which was initially in cardboard "dressers" - has slowly ended up in piles all over the floor, as first one and then another and then yet another of the "drawers" fell apart. Each time I had the temerity to complain, to point out that the only reason I didn't bring my old furniture from San Francisco to New York was because of all the beautiful new stuff Sue was "so excited" to buy, I was reminded by my stepmother, the amateur interior decorator, that finding the "perfect piece" takes time. Nations have fallen and risen, revolutions have come and gone, celebrity couples have wed and divorced, and still the right headboard eludes my stepmother.

The one cool thing about being down here is I put up posters of my two favorite paintings; except for them the walls are completely bare, so it's kind of like being in a museum-you know, vast empty space punctuated by spectacular works of art. Lying on my "bed" I can either look at the wall across from me, where Matisse's The Dancer hangs, or up at the ceiling, where I've tacked a ginormous poster of Autumn Rhythm (Number 30).

My mom was a really great artist. Her paintings hang in museums all over Europe, and MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art each own one. The walls of our house in San Francisco were covered with her work, but when we moved we put it all in storage. My dad said Sue's feelings might be hurt if we asked to hang Mom's paintings here. That's pretty much the major theme in my life now - Sue's feelings. Basically, they're always being hurt or in danger of being hurt.

Which means I'm always in trouble or in danger of being in trouble.

Before I went to sleep, I flipped through a book of Cezanne reproductions I'd gotten out of the library. But even staring at his perfect pears, each one so sculpted and weighty, I couldn't get my mind off the list I'd been making in math, the proof that something had gone very, very wrong with my life.

Because if I have a wicked stepmother and two evil stepsisters, aren't I supposed to get a prince?


	2. Chapter 2

**Not mine :(**

* * *

Once upon a time I actually tried to make a friend at Glen Lake.

This was back in January, at the start of second semester, when I was foolishly convinced my life was about to turn around. I'd signed up for this art class, and from the first day I could tell it was going to be great. Unlike the rest of Glen Lake faculty, Ms. Daniels, the art teacher, A) really knows her stuff, B) is not deaf, dumb, blind, and/or clinically insane, and C) does not dress as if we were still living under President Washington. Plus, she's not afraid to give serious assignments and to grade them hard.

The other kids in the class aren't especially talented, except for one, Edward Cullen, a junior who's without a doubt the best artist in the whole school. His paintings hang all over the building, and when Ms. Daniels took attendance on the first day of class and I realized he was the guy whose art I'd been admiring all first semester, I was totally psyched. Finally, someone I could talk to about something I loved.

The second week of class, when I got to the studio early and found him alone, sitting and sketching on the old couch in the corner, I figured, _Now's my chance._ I tried to start up a conversation, telling him how much I liked a still life he did that was on display in the lobby. It's a painting of one of those small green tables they have at Starbucks, and on the table there's a coffee cup, a crumpled napkin, some change, and a half-eaten doughnut. Even though he played with proportions and perspective, somehow everything seems incredibly real. You can feel the grains of sugar spilled out on the table's surface and the sticky icing on the doughnut.

I told Edward I thought the painting was really cool and I'd spent a lot of time looking at it. I told him how it seemed like you could just take a bite of the doughnut. For the first seven eighths of my monologue, he just squinted up at me, not saying anything. Then, after I'd been going on for, like two hours, he put on his glasses (he wears these glasses with thick, black rims), stopped squinting, and said, "Thanks." But he didn't say it like, _Thanks, it's really cool of you to take time out from your busy schedule to appreciate the art I have labored to create. Just knowing my work is appreciated is all the gratitude I need from this cruel, cruel world. _Instead, he said it like, _Could you possibly crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of and stop bothering me?_

Needless to say, I have stopped pursuing friendship within the Glen Lake artistic community.

On Wednesday, I spent all of art finishing up a charcoal still life on a glass of water, a lemon, and a notebook on a shelf by an open window. When the bell rang I headed to my drawer and put my stuff away, and Ms. Daniels gestured to me to come over to where she was culling the most ancient tubes of paint from a cupboard and chucking them in the trash. She flipped open a tube, tested the paint on the back of her hand, then returned it to the shelf before taking my drawing from me.

"This is looking good, Bella," she said, tracing her finger along the edge of the page. "I love how diaphanous the curtains are."

"Thanks," I said. I was really proud of the curtains; I'd drawn just the edges ad a few lines to indicate folds; I wanted the fabric to seem material but weightless.

She handed back the sketch and put her hands together in front of her chin, taping her index fingers against her lips. "Bella, do you know Francesco Clemente?"

Ms. Daniels and I have talked a lot about different artists we like, but I'd never heard of Clemente. I was tempted to pretend I knew who he was so I wouldn't disappoint her, but at the last second I changed my mind. I mean, what if he wasn't even an artist? What if he was the Prime Minister of Spain or something?

I shook my head. "Who is he?"

She wrapped her long hair into a loose bun at the base of her neck. "He's an artist here in New York," she said. "His stuff is just extraordinary. It actually reminds me of Picasso's later work. All that talent and joy." She slipped a pencil through her bun to hold it in place. "He has a retrospective at the Guggenheim. You should check it out."

I wondered if she'd told anyone else about this shoe or just me. Since January I'd wanted Ms. Daniels to think my work was somehow special. Was this the sign I'd been waiting for? Without my even being conscious of it, I felt the corners of my lips edging upward, something that hadn't happened in a long, long time. It was sort of a miracle my smile muscles hadn't atrophied. Thinking out loud, I said, "Maybe I'll go." I could ask my dad if he wanted to go, too. Of course that meant I couldn't go _this_ Saturday. This Saturday had been reserved by Sue to be spent in pursuit of her own personal holy grail: the late American-Victorian breakfront without which the front hallway looks, and I quote, "as if nobody _loves_ it!"

"Clemente's painting is just thrilling," Ms. Daniels said. "And I think you'll find it particularly interesting in terms of the direction your art is taking."

My art was taking a _direction? _

"Sounds amazing," I said, making the decision to go right then and there. "I won't miss it. Thanks."

I thought Ms. Daniels's compliment would at least carry me through the week, but no sooner had I pushed open the door to the cafeteria than the chill of social exile penetrated the warm fuzzy feeling I'd gotten talking to her. I bought a turkey sandwich and grabbed a chair at an empty table where someone had left today's sports section. Reading about basketball might have cheered me up if there hadn't been a front-page article about how the Lakers were guaranteed to lose to Chicago tonight. My dad grew up in L.A., and I was born there. So even though I've lived most of my life in San Francisco, I'm a huge Lakers fan. As if the gloomy article wasn't bad enough, who should decide to sit in the empty seats just down the table from me but Alice and Rosalie.

"Okay, can I just show you the bear?" asked Rosalie. "Because you're going to die!" I glanced over at them. Rosalie's subtly highlighted hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and her lips were a plumy color I knew even my stepsisters would approve.

Alice finished ripping the foil off her yogurt and looked up at Rosalie. "Give," she said, reaching out her hand and wiggling her fingers.

Rosalie looked like she was about to explode with happiness as she handed Alice the bear. "You have to squeeze it," Rosalie explained.

Alice squeezed the bear, which announced, "I love you."

Rosalie gave a little cry of excitement, like she'd been waiting an eternity for just such a confession from this particular bear. "I know it's completely dumb," she said. "But it's so cute."

"You guys are nauseating," said Alice, but she said it in a nice way, like she didn't mind having a friend who was one half of a nauseating couple.

"Thanks," said Rosalie. "I was telling him that since it's our three-month anniversary, he should-" Suddenly she pointed across the cafeteria. "Hey," she shouted. Then she started waving her arms. I glanced in the direction she was waving and saw Emmett and Jasper, Rosalie and Alice's boyfriends, walking toward the table we were all sitting at.

With them was Alec Pearson.

I stared at him as he crossed the room. It was like my eyes were acting of their own accord; they couldn't not admire Alec's long legs and broad shoulders, his graceful, athlete's walk. And who could blame them?

When the guys got to the table, Rosalie jumped up and gave Emmett a PG-defying kiss. As if inspired by their peers' passion, Alice and Jasper started making out with equal, if imitative, lust.

Finally Rosalie pulled away and slapped Emmett on the upper arm. "I hate Emmett," she said in a little girl voice.

"Whoa," he said, mock rubbing his arm. "What's that for?"

"For watching the game with these guys tonight instead of seeing a movie with me," she said. "Emmett. Is. A. Jerk." She pounded him on the chest with each word.

"You don't understand," Jasper explained to Rosalie as Emmett warded off her blows. "This is going to be _the_ game. L.A.'s going _down_." He and Emmett high-fived.

And then, out of nowhere, as if support for the home team is some kind of autonomic response, I muttered, "Yeah, right."

As soon as I realized what I'd done, I tried to focus my eyes on my paper, like the words I'd spoken had been elicited not by my eavesdropping but by something I'd read. Only it was too late. Emmett, Jasper, Alec, Rosalie, and Alice were all staring at me as if I were a piece of furniture that had suddenly been given the power of speech.

"Are you crazy?" said Jasper. "Did you see the way Chicago played last night?"

I gave up trying to avert my eyes and looked at him. "How'd they play?" I asked. "The Lakers' two best players were out and the ref called five totally insane fouls. Chicago was _handed_ the game."

"_Handed_ the game?" Jasper was practically choking with indignation. He dropped his arm from Alice's shoulders. "Did you see that three-pointer at the buzzer? Did you?"

"I saw it," I said.

"Then what are you _talking_ about?" He reached out like he wanted to shake me.

"Hey, easy there, man," Alec said, grabbing Jasper's arm and holding on until he dropped it back to his side.

Jasper and I kept glaring at each other, but if the only thing rattling Jasper was my saying Chicago was going down, I was freaking about way more than that. Speaking without being spoken to constituted a major social taboo.

I was royally screwed.

Just as Alice opened her mouth to say something to me (no doubt along the lines of, _Shut up, Freak!_), Alec let got of Jasper's arm and turned in my direction. "Sorry about that," he said. "Jazzy gets a little passionate about Chicago."

And then he winked at me.

Everyone saw it, too, and I felt myself getting warm. "Yeah, sure," I stuttered. "Don't worry about it."

Alice shut her mouth and turned away. Because when Alec Pearson winks at someone, that someone isn't royally screwed.

She's royally pardoned.

"Yo, Pearson!" We all looked over to the door where Victoria Dawson and two of her attendants stood. Even from across the room her smile was blinding. "Are you coming or what?"

"You know it," Alec shouted back. He turned to Emmett and Jasper. "Come on, guys," he said.

Jasper and Alice, Emmett and Rosalie started making out again. It seemed nothing would put an end to their lip locks, until Alec grabbed the sleeve of Jasper's jacket and started pulling. "Let's go!" he said, yanking hard at the leather. And then Jasper was pulling on Emmett's jacket and suddenly – _poof!_- all three of them were gone.

No one said anything for a minute after the guys left, and then Alice turned in my direction.

"Wow, you're really, like, into basketball, aren't you?"

Could that be curiosity in her tone? _Hey, you're the new girl who's in my math class. I've really let far too much time go by without getting to know you better. Tell us about your passion for sport! _I was unfamiliar with the social norms of my new habitat; was she friend or foe?

"Yeah," I said. I hated that my answer was so meek, as if I was waiting to see whether she approved of it. I sat up straighter. "I'm a huge fan." I was prepared to defend my leisure activity to the death.

This, apparently, would not be necessary. "Cool," said Alice. Then she turned from me to Rosalie. "Did you see Alec and Victoria in the senior parking lot this morning?'

"Oh my god," said Rosalie. "I give it a month, tops, before they get together."

"A month?" said Alice. "Try a week. You should have heard her. She was all, 'I heard the Knicks are having a great season,' and he was all, 'This could be their year.'"

"Like Victoria suddenly cares about basketball," said Rosalie.

"Like _anyone_ cares about basketball," said Alice. And she bit down emphatically on a baby carrot.

I wanted to say something about the pleasures of basketball, what it's like to lose yourself in a really great game, to watch your team come up from behind to score an unexpected victory, to see a player you've been doubting for months suddenly find his rhythm. There was so much I could have said.

But I'd already said more than enough. I finished my sandwich and the article and gathered up my trash, not surprised that neither Alice nor Rosalie acknowledged my leaving.


	3. Chapter 3

When it was just me and my dad, we used to eat at any old time, but as far as Sue's concerned, if you don't sit down to a hot meal at seven on the dot, you're some kind of irredeemable savage. And "sitting down to a meal" doesn't just mean sitting down. It means china, silver, candles, and elaborate floral arrangements. Sue quit her "job" (as a part-part-part-time PR consultant) about fifteen seconds after my dad proposed, so now she's free to expend massive quantities of time and energy obsessing about important food-related accessories, such as crème brulee ramekins and something called _demitasse_ spoons. Once, she walked into the kitchen when I was eating lo mein directly out of the carton; she gasped and put her hand to her chest as if she'd found me gnawing on a human head.

As usual no one said much to me all through dinner – Sue and the Princesses just compared theories bout celebrity couples and upcoming fashion trends. I couldn't exactly be upset about being ignored since my other option was to be enlightened about the ways I am physically and/or sartorially repulsive.

After dinner the phone rang, just like it does ever night at eight. I was standing right by it holding a pile of dishes I'd carried in from the dining-room table. I dumped the dishes in the sink and grabbed the receiver.

"Hey, Goose, how's it going?" asked my dad when I answered.

"Okay," I said.

"How was school?"

Even though my dad asks me that every time we talk, I can tell he doesn't really want to know the truth. I mean, who wants to hear his daughter is the social pariah? Instead of lingering on the gory details of my unsocial life, I told him how Alec, Emmett, and Jasper thought Chicago was going to beat L.A.

"Wow, those Glen Lake kids really are stupid," he said.

"Not to mention totally gross," I said, and I launched into a description of the make-out session I'd witnesses at lunch. Halfway through my verbal rendition of the couples' game of doubles tonsil-tennis, Princess One, who was sitting with her sister at the kitchen table IM-ing boys across the tri-state area from their mother's laptop, interrupted.

"Are you talking about Alice Brandon?" she asked.

"Wait, hold on," I said to my dad. I turned around. "What?"

"I _said_ are you talking about Alice Brandon? Because she's totally awesome," she said.

I heard my dad calling my name through the receiver. "Hang on a sec," I said, still looking at Princess One. "How do you know Alice Brandon?" I asked.

Princess Two sighed and blew a stream of air up at her bangs. "Hel-_lo_! She's only, like, Cynthia's older sister." Cynthia, I had been informed recently, is the name of the girl who's currently the Princesses' best friend. Like the chairmanship of the European Union, this position rotates periodically.

"Wait a second, you're telling me that they named their kids Alice and Cynthia?"

"Yeah," the Princesses said in unison.

I started laughing. "What?" they asked, looking at me.

"It reminds me of the Brady Bunch."

"_I_ like it," said Princess Two. "It's _classy_."

I was about to say it was classy as a porn star, but by now my dad was practically screaming my name.

"Sorry," I said, putting the receiver back up to my ear. "I just had to navigate some Long Island lunacy."

When my dad and Sue decided to get married, there was this whole debate on where we should live. Because the Princesses' dad lives in the next town over and they have about twice as much time left in school as I do, the decision was made that my dad and I would depart San Francisco rather than subjecting the Princesses to a potentially traumatic relocation across the Mississippi River. If you ask me, this was a huge mistake, since leaving the 516-area code is the only thing that could have saved my stepsisters from growing up to be Humvee-driving, acrylic-nail wearing, soap-opera addicted housewives.

Unfortunately for them, nobody asked me.

"So," said my dad, "did you see the _Times_? Stanford's looking pretty good. I think this could be their year." My dad, who went to Stanford, has a loyalty to his alma mater that I can only describe as perverse. In spite of the fact that their team has not even made it close to the NCAA finals in decades, he continues to bet on them year after year.

Before I could answer, I heard a click, which meant Sue had picked up the extension in the den. It's this totally annoying thing she does – getting on the phone with me and my dad. It's like she's afraid if she doesn't supervise him every second, he'll realize what a mistake he made marrying her.

"Hello, darling," she said.

"Hi, honey," he said.

Gag me.

I did what I always do when Sue butts into our conversations: I ignored her.

"It's only February," I said to my dad. "I can't start thinking NCAA yet."

"Wait," said Sue. "I just got used to NBA. What's NCAA?"

My dad laughed as though Sue had just said the most amusing thing he'd ever heard. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Mrs. Swan," he said, still chuckling. "Sweetheart, you are officially cute."

I cleared my throat to remind him he wasn't exactly having a private conversation.

"Bella, I'm just telling you," he said, "Stanford is having a killer season."

I groaned. The truth is, even if I thought Stanford had a chance of winning the NCAA, which they don't, I could never root for the school that is responsible for my current state of misery. Had my father and Sue's brother not been on the same floor together freshman year at Stanford, and had Sue's brother not decided to look up his old classmate two years ago when he had business in San Francisco, and had my dad not, shortly thereafter, had a conference at his firm's New York office, and had he, after that conference, not met his old classmate for a drink, and had his old classmate not brought his divorced sister to said drink, and had said old classmate's sister not been totally on the prowl for a new husband, and had my dad not fallen for a woman who thinks interior decorating is a liberal art I would not currently be living in social exile, related by marriage to twelve-year-old twins who believe getting a cut and color is a spiritually enriching experience.

"Stanford's going down, Dad. Take a reality check." It may have been cold comfort that Stanford had zero chance of taking the NCAA title, but it was comfort nonetheless.

"It's incredible," said Sue. "If you had told me a year ago that I'd have a daughter who was a sports fanatic, I never would've believed you."

I didn't say anything. If you ask me, it's totally weird how she's started referring to me as her daughter. This summer, right before they got married, Sue took me out for dinner and gave me this whole speech about how she would never try to replace my mother and how she understood I could never lover her the way I had loved my real mother, but she hoped she could play a role in my life. I told her that I didn't really remember my real mom all that well considering she died of cancer when I was only three, so it wasn't exactly like there was anything to replace. I meant I didn't really feel like needed a mother, but it's become clear that Sue thinks I meant I wanted her to be my mother.

"MOM!" screeched the Princesses.

"What is it?" I could hear Sue in both my right ear, through the phone, and in my left, from the den. She was everywhere at once.

"We _need _you!"

"Coming." I heard the click of he phone as she hung it up.

"Hey, Dad," I said, taking advantage of our having a minute to talk without Sue listening in. "You want to go to the Guggenheim with me next Saturday?"

"Sure, Goose. That would be fun. We haven't been to a museum in a while."

I couldn't believe how easy that had been. Why hadn't I suggested we do something alone together before?

Sue came running into the kitchen. "Yes, girls?"

"Never mind," said Princess One, not bothering to look up from the screen. "It's working now."

Sure wasn't even mad that she'd run all the way across the house for nothing. She just walked over to where I was still on the phone.

"Bella, could you finish helping to clear the table?" I loved how she said "helping," like anyone besides me was doing it.

"Well, bye, Dad," I said, taking Sue's not-so subtle hint.

"Bye, Goose. See you tomorrow." I gave Sue the phone and headed into the dining room, where I discovered neither of the Princesses had cleared so much as a fork from her place. When I went back into the kitchen carrying their stuff, I almost made a joke about how Cinderella should know better than to think her stepsisters might actually clean up after themselves, but I knew nobody but me would think it was funny.

People never think things that are true are funny.


	4. Chapter 4

"Bella, I just know we're going to find some lovely furniture for your room on this trip. I'm sooo glad you could come with us today."

It was Saturday morning, and we were walking along the main street of Lomax, New York, a Hudson River Valley town that's cute with a capital K. Every place we passed was either a bed and breakfast or an antique furniture store. When we first arrived, I'd asked a salesman at Jane's Junk and Valuables if there was a place in town that sold CDs, and he looked at me like I'd inquired about purchasing a hand-held rocket grenade launcher.

"Charlie, honey, look at this." Sue pulled my father toward a picture window that held a gigantic piece of furniture I now knew was called a breakfront. "Wouldn't that just look yummy in the foyer?"

"It's nice, sweetheart," said my dad. "You want to go inside and have a look at it?"

Sue's eyes lit up. "How do you know me so well? Of course I do." He held the door open for her and she practically danced across the threshold. (At least he didn't carry her.)

"You coming, Goose?" asked my dad. He asked like I had a choice, like if I said no I wouldn't be accused of Having a Bad Attitude. Apparently if you don't think examining ancient wooden furniture in tiny little towns is just the dandiest way to spend your free time, you Have a Bad Attitude. You also Hurt Sue's Feelings, which is a very, very bad thing to do. That's why I was stuck on today's little outing-because last weekend, instead of lying and saying I had a lot of friends or work or anything that might keep me from spending my day comparing late-early Victorian breakfronts with early-late Victorian breakfronts, I had made the catastrophic error of admitting I'm just not all that into furniture shopping. That was last Saturday morning. Last Sunday morning, my dad came into my room and told me that Sue's feelings were very, very hurt, and he certainly hoped I'd reconsider and come with them next weekend. Even though he used the word hope he clearly meant know as in, "I know you'll reconsider and come with us next weekend, or you will be grounded for the rest of your life."

I told him I was looking forward to joining them.

I followed Sue into the store. "Look around, Goose," said my dad. "Maybe you'll find something you like for your room.

As if it weren't bad enough that I was living in a furniture-free zone, Sue had added insult to injury by basically redoing the entire house in the seven months since we moved in. I once made the mistake of asking my dad if it didn't strike him as being just the tiniest bit suspicious that she'd been able to select, order, and have shipped from England an entire living-room set while continuing to claim that there was not a single chest of drawers in the entire New York metropolitan area worthy of my basement bedroom. My dad just got really stern and said, "What are you implying, Bella? That Sue doesn't want to furnish your room?" Actually that was exactly what I'd been implying, but watching him get like that, all cold and scary, totally freaked me out. So I just said, "Nothing. I'm not implying anything," and never mentioned it again.

I pretended to be looking at a dresser roughly the size of the Arc de Triomphe while Sue squealed with pleasure over the breakfront. Finally her cries of excitement ("Look, honey, a tiny drawer!") were more than I could take, and I made my way to the back of the store, where furniture was piled so crazily it was almost impossible to find a space to stand. Then my eyes hit on something that actually got my attention-in a good way.

"Dad! Hey, Dad! Check this out." It must have taken my dad about twenty minutes to respond; no doubt it's pretty hard to pull yourself away from a scintillating breakfront tête à tête.

"Yeah?" he finally answered.

"Make a left," I said. "I'm right around the corner where the little table is."

"Wow, this is terra incognita," said my dad, climbing over a footstool.

"And look what I discovered," I said. Leaning against the wall was an old-fashioned wooden easel. The chain that attached the legs was delicately wrought filigree, and the wood itself was a dark cherry, carved everywhere in an intricate pattern. It looked like an easel Monet or Ingres might have used. "Pretty cool, huh?" I said.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "It's amazing." He knelt down. "Look at this." He pointed toward the floor.

"Wow." I hadn't noticed that the legs ended in tiny, carved lion paws. "That's beautiful."

Kneeling in the dim light of the antique shop, I realized this was probably the first time in almost a year I was actually getting a minute alone with my dad. So it didn't exactly come as a surprise when I heard Sue calling his name.

"Charlie? Charlie, where are you?" Her tone bordered on frantic.

"In the back, honey," he called, standing up. "Make a left at the marble table."

"It's so dusty back here."

Sue prefers her antiques nice and clean. It's okay that furniture's been used, as long as it doesn't look used.

"Look what Bella found," my dad said, pointing at the easel. "Isn't it amazing?"

Sue made a bright face. "Oh, it's lovely!" she said. "What a nice piece. It's like something you'd find in a museum."

Right then I knew I'd never be allowed to get the easel. If Sue had just said it was nice, maybe there'd be a chance, but "It's like something you'd find in a museum" translated to "This comes into the house over my dead body."

My dad didn't get it at first. "Oh, you like it?" he asked.

"I love it," she said, nodding energetically. "It's really a shame we don't have a place for such an original piece."

Unlike my dad, I got where Sue was going with her faux enthusiasm, but I couldn't believe she was really prepared to walk away from something so beautiful. "I thought it could go in my room," I said.

Sue's nodding turned to head shaking and she smiled a sad smile. "I hear what you're saying, Bella. I just don't think it's quite right for the space."

Yeah, 'cause you wouldn't want to buy something that would clash with nothing.

"Well, maybe we could work around it. You know, you could pick furniture that would match it somehow."

"Mmmm, yeah." She pursed her lips, like she was thinking really hard about what I was saying. "Unfortunately, I just don't think that's going to work."

"Well, why not?" I asked. My voice came out sharper than I'd meant it to.

My dad, who had been examining the scrollwork at the base of the easel, looked up. I could tell he'd been too engrossed in the carving to hear a word that was said until now, so as far as he was concerned, I was taking this edgy tone with Sue for no reason at all.

"Bella, I know you're disappointed," she said. "But right now we really have to focus on the essentials."

She turned and made her way to the front of the store. My dad put his hand on my shoulder. "Maybe another time, Goose," he said.

"Yeah, maybe," I said.

While my dad paid for the breakfront and Sue and the salesman set up a good day to have it delivered, I stood by the door, idly thinking about the only good thing that had happened to me recently-that wink I'd gotten from Alec Pearson. I was still thinking about it as we left the store and started walking down the block. He hadn't just winked at me, either, I remembered. He'd given me this really charming smile, too. The wink. The smile. The wink. The-

"Oh, Bella." Sue put her hand on my arm. "I left my jacket back at the store. Would you run back and get it for me?"

The wink, the smile ... the reality.

Cinderella does not get weekends off.


End file.
